"twenty-four well-reasoned, thought-provoking chapters on making the change from technical star to problem-solving leader... an extremely practical and down-to-earth book." - Cause/Effect
(translated into Dutch, Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese)
This book is a personalized guide to developing the qualities that make a successful leader. It identifies which leadership skills are most effective in a technical environment and why technical people have characteristic trouble in making the transition to a leadership role. For anyone who is a leader, hopes to be one, or would like to avoid being one. (This is the "textbook" for Problem Solving Leadership Workshop.)
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When Banzan was walking through a market he overheard a conversation between a butcher and his customer."Give me the best piece of meat you have," said the customer.
"Everything in my shop is the best," replied the butcher. "You cannot find here any piece of meat that is not the best."
At these words Banzan became enlightened.
-- Paul Reps
"Everything Is Best" from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones
This is a book about enlightenment, both mine and yours. Mine is still incomplete, but so far has taken rather longer than a walk through the market. This book, for instance, has been at least fifteen years in the making.
It started around 1970, when Don Gause, Dani Weinberg (my wife), and I spent a summer in Switzerland. Don and I were writing a book on problem solving (Are Your Lights On? or How to Figure Out What the Problem Really Is), and Dani was continuing her anthropological research on Swiss Peasant communities. Over the years, Don and I had been studying successful and unsuccessful problem-solving efforts, particularly computing projects. Dani had been studying the ways in which new technology had been introduced into peasant communities. Comparing notes, we dreamed of a workshop that would have the maximum possible leverage on the successful introduction of new technical systems, but where was that leverage?
When we compared successful and unsuccessful systems, we quickly realized that almost all of the successes hinged on the performance of a small number of outstanding technical workers. Some of them were consistent sources of innovative technical ideas, some were interpreters of other people's ideas. Some were inventors, some were negotiators, some were teachers, some were team leaders. What distinguished them from their less successful colleagues was a rare combination of technical expertise and leadership skills. Today, we would say that they were high in innovation, but with sufficient motivational and organizational skills to use in making ideas effective.
These leaders were not the pure technicians produced by the engineering and science schools, nor were they the conventional leaders trained in the schools of management. They were a different breed, a hybrid. What they shared was a concern for the quality of ideas. Like the butcher, they wanted everything in their shop to be the best. We called them technical leaders.
Don, Dani, and I designed a new leadership workshop, called "Technical Leadership in Computer Programming," which was first given in Australia at the invitation of Dennis Davie. (It's now called the Problem Solving Leadership Workshop, or PSL.) Fourteen out of fifteen participants rated it "the most profound educational experience I've ever had." We realized we had found our leverage.
In the years that followed, Daniel Freedman and a few others joined our team and the workshop was given to hundreds of would-be technical leaders all over the world. A few electrical and mechanical engineers slipped in, as did some trainers. Except for some technical material, these newcomers found everything directly applicable to their work. As a result, we gradually dropped technical material and broadened our audience. We also broadened our vision of what was possible.
For one thing, we discovered that this technical leadership style was applicable to many problems that have nothing to do with technology. We began to hear stories from workshop graduates who had applied it to situations other than those arising from their technical work.
These people had transformed themselves from ordinary technical supervisors into problem-solving leaders with the power to make things happen. Many of them didn't understand their own transformation. It seemed as if one day they were supervisors and the next they were leaders, like Banzan in the marketplace. But if leadership were only attained through a sudden, mystical enlightenment, how could one learn to become a technical leader?
Over the years, the biggest lesson we have learned from our workshops is that becoming a leader is not something that happens to you, but something that you do. Often in a workshop, someone seems to attain a sudden enlightenment, but we have no more to do with that than the butcher had to do with the moment that completed Banzan's lifelong conversion. Our workshops do not teach people to become leaders; they merely give a boost to each person's unique experiential process of self-development. This book takes the same approach: Consider it as your personal leadership workshop.
From working with systems, I have learned that the process of change is always organic: It's never possible to change just one thing at a time. Each of my behaviors is the solution to some problem from my past. To learn, I add new behaviors to serve alongside these valuable old ones. Yet, like a seed, I already have all the behaviors needed to grow, so I merely need to cultivate them selectively
I believe that leadership involves a nurturing process, not taking charge of people's lives, so this book is a guide to the process of taking charge of your own development. Its methods, like the methods of our workshops, are organic, designed to fit with the unique system that is you in a way that is gentle, realistic, and fun.
Nevertheless, the process of change won't always feel like fun. Because change is often difficult, the book is also designed to provide emotional support. I offer models of leadership, so you'll have an opportunity to let go of some old myths that may block your path. I offer models of change, so you'll understand better what's happening when old ideas fall away. I quote other people's remarks about their feelings as they've become technical leaders, so you'll know you're not alone. I know you will find your own unique enlightenment, and I hope this book will be a welcome companion on your walk through the marketplace.
Contents
Preface vii
Foreword xi
PART ONE: DEFINITION 1
1. What is Leadership, Anyway? 3
The reluctant leader 5
Facing the leadership issue 6
A conventional but flawed view of leadership 7
Contrasting models of the world 8
Explanation of an event 9
Definition of a person 10
Definition of relationships 10
Attitude toward change 11
An organic definition of leadership 12
Questions 14
2. Models of Leadership Style 15
Motivation 17
Ideas 18
Organization 18
The MOI model of leadership 19
What technical leaders do 20
Faith in a better way 22
Questions 23
3. A Problem-Solving Style 25
Understanding the problem 27
Managing the flow of ideas 29
Controlling the quality 31
Questions
4. How Leaders Develop 35
Practice makes perfect 37
The great leap forward 38
Falling into the ravine 39
Growth in the real world 40
How growth feels 42
The metacycle 43
Questions 45
5 But I Can't Because ... 47
I'm not a manager 49
I'm not the leader type 51
I'll lose my technical skills 52
I'm in grave danger of growing 53
I don't want that much power 54
Questions 56
PART TWO: INNOVATION 59
6. The Three Great Obstacles to Innovation 61
Are you aware of what you had for dessert? 63
Self-blindness: the number one obstacle 64
No-Problem Syndrome: the number two obstacle 65
Single-solution belief: the number three obstacle 68
Summary 71
Questions 72
7. A Tool for Developing Self-Awareness 73
A test of your motivation 75
Your initial reaction 75
Your personal journal 76
What to write about 77
What the journal does 78
Questions 81
8. Developing Idea Power 83
The problem-solving leader's central dogma 85
Creative errors 86
Stolen ideas 86
Corrupted stolen ideas 87
Copulation 88
Why ideas seem wicked 88
Questions 90
9 The Vision 91
The career line 93
The events don't matter 95
Can success breed failure? 96
The central role of the vision 97
Why the vision creates an innovator 98
Finding the vision in yourself 99
Questions 101
PART THREE: MOTIVATION 103
10 The First Great Obstacle to Motivating Others 105
Testing Yourself 107
An interaction model 108
The manifest part of an interaction 109
The hidden parts of an interaction 109
Satir's interaction model 110
Understanding why communications go awry 114
A way to start clearing communications 115
Questions 117
11 The Second Great Obstacle to Motivating Others 119
An unpleasant task 121
Lessons from a task-oriented style 122
Is a people-oriented style better? 123
Weinberg's Target 124
Planning and the future 124
The second great obstacle 125
The leader as a person 126
Questions 128
12 The Problem of Helping Others 129
Help should be natural 131
Trying to be helpful: an exercise 132
Some lessons about helping 134
Helping and self-esteem 137
Questions 139
13 Learning to be a Motivator 141
Always be sincere (whether you mean it or not) 143
Survival rules 144
Meta-rules 144
Transforming rules into guides 145
Becoming genuinely interested in other people 149
Why and when you should read Dale Carnegie 150
Questions 152
14 Where Power Comes From 153
Power as a relationship 155
Power from technology 156
Expertise as power 157
Keeping power 158
Questions 160
15 Power, Imperfection and Congruence 161
A mechanical problem 163
Mature patterns of behavior 164
Dealing with your own mechanical problems 165
I must always be natural and spontaneous 167
I must always be perfectly effective 168
The payoff for being congruent 169
Questions 172
PART FOUR: ORGANIZATION 173
16 Gaining Organizational Power 175
Converting power 177
Edrie's examples of power conversion 179
Collecting points 180
Using power 181
Questions 183
17 Effective Organization of Problem-Solving Teams 185
A spectrum of organizational forms 187
Individual scores and voting 188
The strong leader 189
Consensus 189
Mixed organizational forms 191
Form follows function 192
Appendix: scoring the ranking 194
Questions 195
18 Obstacles to Effective Organizing 197
First obstacle: playing the Big Game 199
Second obstacle: organizing people as if they were machines 200
Third obstacle: doing the work yourself 201
Fourth obstacle: rewarding ineffective organizing 202
Organic organizing 203
Questions 205
19 Learning to Be an Organizer 207
Practice 209
Observe and experiment 210
Look for incongruence: They're doing the best they can 211
Look for crossed wires 212 Legitimize differences 213
Use yourself as a model of the team 214
Change as you succeed 215
Questions
PART FIVE: TRANSFORMATION 217
20 How You Will Be Graded as A Leader 219
The professor's first day of class 221
The fatal question 222
Multiplicative grading for leaders 223
A strategy for improvement 224
Can teaching and leading be learned? 224
Grading on the first day 225
A possible solution 225
Questions 228
21 Passing Your Own Leadership Tests 229
A top executive test 231
The ability to withstand tests 232
How to handle an intruder 232
Arnold's Approach 233
Ramon's Approach 235
What's the right way?
Using and abusing tests 236
Questions
22 A Personal Plan for Change 239
An experiment 241
The mental climate for change 241
A personal achievement plan 242
Can it make a difference? 244
Elements of a plan 245
Questions 247
23 Finding Time to Change 249
Staying on target 251
Doing two things at once 253
The cheapest tuition 255
Questions 257
24 Finding Support for Change 259
A support system 261
Technical resource support 262
Support through criticism 263
Support for growth 263
Support for recovery 264
Emotional support 265
Spiritual support 266
Support to maintain leadership 266
Questions 268
Epilogue 269
Bibliography 275
Index 281